A Weekend of Mixed Emotions

Well here we are at the beginning of another week, with the weekend having brought the amazing as well as the sad. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Last week was kind of an important week at work. For the first time, I went to class on Tuesday and people in class actually knew what I had done at work the day before! For those of you who are unaware of what transpired last week, it was the Durban Review Conference, which has been building up for about three years, and which our office has been preparing for at least since I came to work in January, if not before. In a nutshell, there was a Durban World Conference in 2001 on racism, xenophobia, racial discrimination, and related intolerance which produced the Durban Declaration and Program of Action (DDPA). Eight years later, they are holding a conference to see how well the DDPA is being implemented and how much racism still persists. Member states were invited to speak, as well as NGOs and other stakeholders, with one of the most prominent, publicized, and controversial speakers being the President of Iran. It was my job to cover the conference and, let’s just say he said some pretty divisive things, resulting in NGOs screaming "racist" at him in the Assembly Hall as he was speaking, others getting kicked out of the Hall they were causing such as scene, and the entire European Union walking out in protest of what he was saying. From what I’ve heard from those outside of the UN world, he was the most talked about speaker, though the Foreign Minister of Norway who spoke right after him put forth quite a commendable statement, though not given nearly as much hype.

Friday, the last day of the conference, as I was leaving work, there was a huge demonstration (this is getting to be a normal part of life for me). They were protesting the crisis in Sri Lanka again, but I think this was bigger than I’ve ever seen. They shut the main gate again, and for the first time I felt the need to hide my UN badge and quickly slip on the tram. I saw in the newspaper the next day there were over 2,000 people there when I was leaving.

The next day was wonderful. I slept in a bit, then by 9:50 I was out pounding the pavement with my running shoes. I hadn’t been really running (I’d been out every once in a while for an hour here or there, but nothing like I wanted) in a long time, but I was enjoying it so much I didn’t get back till 3:00. I started out running down some trails by the border, then headed into Geneva and ran alllll over Geneva. Ran through old town and by the cathedral, ran by the shopping center, the lake, the jet d’eau, the train station, the UN, through several parks, the University, and ended up at the botanical gardens. The sun was shining and I had my music, it was splendid.

I got back in time to catch a brief nap before Leah and I made a quick salad and headed to Renaud’s house. This was the friend we had stayed with in Casablanca. We had never eaten raqulettes before, so he invited us over for a little dinner party. Raqulettes are a traditional food for this region, though we can’t decide if it’s more Swiss or French, but it’s particular to this region and we had yet to try it, so it was a must. You must have a specific kind of grill, and then you put slices of special cheese on little trays on the grill till they get all melted, then you slide them off onto boiled potatoes (and meat if you’re not a vegetarian). Normally I don’t eat cheese, especially not in that quantity, but I made an exception for this particular evening. It was really fun; Renaud invited some of his friends, and even though they were his age, Leah and I spoke French the entire night and had tons of fun. We got there at 8:00 and didn’t leave till 1:30 AM, against Renaud’s protests to stay just a little longer. That’s how you do dinner parties in France.

Sunday morning Sarah and I got up and hit the market. And when I say hit, man we hit it hard : ) It was great though, quality bonding time with the roommate. We got fresh pain au chocolate there for breakfast, then wandered through the aisles of fresh fruits, vegetables, breads, cheese, meats and fish, clothes, bags, shoes, underwear, and everything else. We ended up spending a little too long in the clothes and found stuff we simply couldn’t live without, but one must try on clothes before buying them, no? But were, might you ask, do you try on clothes in the middle of a market? In the back of a van of course. No joke. So the two of us gathered our favorites and shared the back of a van/dressing room. Good times. We made out quite nicely, she ended up with a dress, two tank tops, a shirt, and some fun capris, I ended up with a skirt, a shirt, and some lacy leggings. Afterwards, we decided some real food was in order, so we hit up the market kebab stand, where they whipped us up two fresh veggie sandwiches which we enjoyed on a bench while people watching.

After the hike up the hill, I attempted to do some homework, but was far too distracted with playing with the ants crawling on my bed. Yes, with the glory of spring and warmer weather and open windows equals incredibly talented ants who can crawl up three stories and into our windows. I don’t want to kill them, so instead I played with them. This unfortunately did not result in a very productive afternoon, especially since shortly after the dorms opened up for open house and the guys could wander in the girl’s rooms and vice versa. I agreed to this thinking, why not? I like our room, why not show it off. But, I did not realize how incredible awkward this would be. You’re sitting in your room trying to do your homework and someone knocks so you cheerfully call ‘come in!’, and in wanders some theology boys who you never talk to. You exchange pleasantries, they stare at your room, make a comment or two about how they like this or that, and then they sort of wander out. Talk about awkward.

This was followed by a bizarre fete the school helped to organize, which I knew literally nothing about till the day of. It was 80’s theme, and despite the fact that it is the decade I probably despise the most (you cannot call what came out of that decade music), it was still really fun and people got really into it. Some theology boys did a really fun sketch, our Hispanic friends did a little dance, there was karaoke, and a ridiculous fashion show which included clothes from probably every decade except the 80’s (poodle skirt, renaissance dress, tie dye, you name it). Then the deans also did their own dance number, which was hilarious, and everyone got up and did the cha cha slide and the electric slide. Crazy times in Collonges.

I could just as easily not write this next part, but I just thought I would share that though life here is almost always fun and games, it does have its sad and hard moments too, and it wouldn’t be a balanced perspective if I didn’t share a few of those as well. Let me preface this next part of the weekend though with a little background information. There has been construction in the girls dorm almost all year, which has created a LOT of noise, sometimes chemical smells, large amounts of dust, and just a generally disagreeable living situation. While this has not really caused a problem for me, since I’m never here in the afternoon when they’re working, apparently it has bothered the other girls quite a bit and they have been complaining so much that the school finally conceded and allowed them to move over to the boys dorm. Almost everyone moved over but Sarah and I and a few others; it just wasn’t worth the hassle for the little time left in the year and the trouble of setting up your room all over again. Plus, Sarah and I love our room with our view and how we’ve arranged our room and everything. I was sad the other girls weren’t here anymore to talk to when I came home from work, but it wasn’t the end of the world.

Until, between the ants in our room and trying to talk to her mom on the phone over the construction noise, Sarah decided she couldn’t handle it anymore. Sunday morning she was still debating, and by Sunday evening she was half moved out. I came back from the 80s party to find bare shelves and empty closets. She looked at me and asked if I was okay, and I said yeah, sure, just a little sad to see you go, so she gave me a big hug and the next thing you know I’ve burst into tears. I felt so silly, but I guess I hadn’t had a good cry in a while. And seeing the empty shelves just got me thinking about all the other times in my life I’ve moved and how all but one (Idaho to Oregon) of them I didn’t mind that much, but this one was going to be so much harder. I have fallen in love with this place and I was not looking forward to packing my things up, so even though we still have six weeks left, it just reminded me that the end was quickly approaching and there was nothing I could do to stop it. On top of that was the obvious and more imminent fact that I was losing a wonderful and incredible roommate. Granted, I am not in the room that much, and neither is she, but at some point in the night we do both come back. We ask how each other’s days were, borrow each other’s clothes, swap boy stories and talk about hard things we’re going through. We exercise together, we get up in the morning at the same time and get ready together as we listen to our favorite music, we eat breakfast together, and one of our favorites- we watch the office together while drinking tea and eating cookies my mom has sent me.

So I just started thinking, as she was giving me a hug that night, how I would come home from work to an empty room and it made me sad. She was so great though, and pointed out that, yes, it will be different, but she is not dying and it’s not like we’re never going to see each other again, and I can spend the night in her room whenever, and if I decide to move over, she would be more than happy to have me in the new room and would even help me move. So we had a good cry together, I told her to take it as a compliment that I was crying over her departure, and then watched one more episode of the Office together during our last night together as roommates. We stayed up far too late, considering I had a huge report for work due the next day on Durban and all the preceding weeks events, as well as homework and a test, so I went to bed at 11:30/12:00 and had to get up at 5:00, but it was so worth it, despite my fatigue now.